Medical Specimens Found Buried At “America’s Most Haunted Hotel”

The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, is already known as the most haunted hotel in America and what was recently discovered on the property adds even more shock to its already creepy past. Over 400 glass bottles have been discovered in the backyard of the hotel that date back from 1938-1940 when the building was used as Baker Hospital and Health Resort.

The owner of the hospital was named Norman Baker and he claimed to have found the cure for cancer which caused many sufferers from the disease to seek his help. Unfortunately for the innocent victims, it seems as though it was all a hoax and no evidence has ever been found to support his story about having a cure to the deadly disease.

In the morgue of the hospital, there were rows of jars that contained tumors inside of them that had been taken out of the patients. The pictures that were taken of Baker’s jars many years earlier look very similar to those recently found in the back of the hotel.

Crescent Hotel

Baker spent three years in jail after being convicted of mail fraud in 1940 and his hospital was closed down. He later passed away in 1958.

Keith Scales, who is in charge of the ghost tours at the hotel, said that officials were informed that the following owners of the building (after Baker) had removed all of the specimen bottles and threw them in the dump sometime in the 1960s. It was assumed that they meant the landfill which is located near Berryville, but they obviously meant that they dumped the bottles right behind the building.

When Susan Benson, who is the hotel’s “landscape artist”, was moving around the earth in the back of the hotel in early February so that they could make an archery range, that’s when she discovered the “bottle dump”. While further testing needs to be done, it is believed that more than 20 bottles contain tissue that could very well have been taken from Baker’s patients. The samples had been preserved in alcohol.

A couple of other bottles that were found seem to contain his “cure” for cancer. According to a 1940s court case, the ingredients of the “cure” were revealed as being brown corn silk, red clover, ground-up watermelon seeds, peppermint, glycerin, and carbolic acid. Some of his patients were even injected with this concoction up to seven times per day.

Eureka Springs with the Crescent Hotel in the distance

In addition, 16mm film reels were found with one frame containing the words “Before Baker Treatments”.

Click here to see pictures of the bottles that were found.

Baker was a complete fraud and was never a doctor. In fact, he was an entrepreneur who did performances as an illusionist and a hypnotist. He then worked in radio broadcasting and eventually ran for the U.S. Senate as well as the governor of Iowa – he lost in both.

Scales indicated that he hopes to include the recently discovered specimen bottles during his ghost tours. The hotel is said to be extremely haunted, especially in the Crystal Dining Room, as well as rooms 419 and 218. There have even been claims of a portal located above where the morgue used to be. Many apparitions have also been seen at the hotel, including the famous ballroom dancer and performer Irene Castle, as well as Norman Baker.

Jocelyne LeBlanc (CLICK HERE TO READ AND SEE MORE)